Opinion: Backers of legal pot just want to get high

By Louis R. (Skip) Miller

Special to the Mercury News

Posted:
07/11/2010 08:00:00 PM PDT

Do we really want to make it easier to get stoned?

Cut through the smoke and that's really what California voters will be deciding in November with Proposition 19, which would make this the only state to fully legalize marijuana — a drug with proven negative health consequences.

Forget what they say about pot smokers being mellow. As the chairman of DARE America, the nation's top drug abuse prevention/education program, I get strident e-mail from people who want the rest of us to bless their drug habits by making marijuana legal and easier to get.

I read every e-mail, but I have yet to see one that overcomes the body of scientific research demonstrating that smoking marijuana is harmful and does just one thing well: It gets people high. And that high comes with short- and long-term health risks that proponents of legal weed don't like to acknowledge.

The concern with marijuana is not based on my personal disapproval or bias but upon what science tells us about the drug's effects. The science is clear: Marijuana is associated with physical and mental illness, poor motor performance and cognitive impairment.

Marijuana smoke is loaded with toxic compounds such as ammonia and hydrogen cyanide; it contains seven times more tar and carbon monoxide than cigarette smoke.

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Pot smokers have higher rates of respiratory disease and an increased incidence of mouth cavity, tongue, throat and lung cancers.

Marijuana use narrows arteries in the brain in ways similar to patients with high blood pressure and dementia. Over time, speed of thinking and other cognitive abilities deteriorate.

Smoking dope has been shown to cause an immediate rise in the heartbeat by 20 to 30 beats per minute along with an increase in blood pressure, increasing the workload of the heart.

Marijuana use is linked to higher rates of depression and can trigger schizophrenia in people already vulnerable to the mental illness.

A study from the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services found that 34.7 percent of vehicular trauma patients treated at a Baltimore emergency room tested positive for marijuana use — an even higher percentage than those who tested positive for alcohol.

I do not take issue with medically prescribed usage; however, a landmark Institute of Medicine study that identified some medicinal potential in marijuana discounted the effectiveness of smoked marijuana. Smoking marijuana gets you high, damages your lungs and mushes up your brain. Some medicine.

Indeed, one of the most pernicious effects of marijuana is that it lowers inhibitions, making users engage in risky behavior — including excessive alcohol consumption and use of harder drugs.

California has a tradition of laws protecting public health. It is illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet or ride in a car without a seat belt. California was the first state to ban the use of artery-clogging trans fats in food. We do this in part to keep individuals safe and in part to reduce the burden on society.

Yet, with marijuana, some Californians want to go the other way and expand availability of this drug. Taxes on pot would not come anywhere close to covering the inevitable societal costs — as we have seen from tobacco and alcohol taxes that barely make a dent in the health and safety costs caused by cigarettes and alcohol.

Pot smokers can roll their campaign in whatever clever slogans they want. Smart voters should see through the haze and realize that efforts to legalize pot are not driven by fiscal responsibility or good health. They're about making it easier to get stoned.

LOUIS R. MILLER is chairman of D.A.R.E. America, the top drug abuse prevention and education program in the United States, and a partner in the Los Angeles law firm Miller Barondess, LLP. He wrote this article for this newspaper.